Victims describe chlorine-gas attack

Iraqi tribe at war with militant group

McClatchy Newspapers

Published Tuesday, March 27, 2007

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- Gunmen in black hoods came to Albuaifan, a town south of Fallujah, four months ago and demanded that the sheiks of the Albu Issa tribe pledge loyalty to the Islamic State of Iraq, the insurgent "nation" that the group al-Qaida in Iraq had proclaimed last October.

The tribal leaders said no.

Since then, the tribe has been at war. Its men have stopped going to work, and they carry weapons routinely now. They've even issued a password and closely question anyone they encounter who doesn't know it.

The battle entered a frightening new stage 10 days ago when insurgents blew up a chlorine tank in the middle of Albuaifan. The heavy, poisonous gas sank near the ground and seeped into the garden of Irsan Majid Alisawy, where a dozen children were playing.

"I couldn't breathe," Alisawy recalled Monday. "I wanted to open my mouth but there was no air."

It was even worse for the children, who quickly passed out.

"We were terrified," Alisawy said.

At least eight people have died from the attack. Two of Alisawy's nieces lingered at the U.S.-run Ibn Seena Hospital in Baghdad's Green Zone until Sunday, when they succumbed to burns to their lungs. One was 8, the other 2.

Alisawy's 18-month-old son remained hospitalized, breathing through an oxygen mask. Tubes snaked from his body. A blanket decorated with turtles covered him.

Another niece, Malak -- "Angel" in Arabic -- gasped for air through a ventilator tube in her nose and sipped from a juice box that her uncle offered. Malak, 3, doesn't know that her parents are dead.

Once chlorine gas burns the lungs, little can be done to reverse the damage. Patients are given supplemental oxygen, said Maj. David Cassella of 28th Combat Support Hospital, who's from Savannah, Ga., and is a head nurse in one of the hospital's intensive care units.

"Once it happens there is nothing you can do. The body just has to heal," White said.

The toll is especially serious for children. The gas is "very heavy and lies low to the ground," Cassella said. That's why the most seriously injured from the March 17 attack were children, he said.